i've been bent and broken (into a better shape)
by Landwerda
Summary: On brainwashing, love, children, choices, and running away. But mostly about coming back. (Or: Natalia Romanova discovers she's pregnant with the Winter Soldier's baby.)


I think I've reached the limit of my personal indulgences, and then I write something like this.

A kid-fic, but mostly about Natasha and Bucky reclaiming their lives, and then, in a future time, I'll probably start sketching out a draft of the fix-it fics I intend to write, because OMFG Marvel canon is more painful than I'll ever be able to write in my life. Hope you enjoy, and if you do I'd love some kudos or comments!

(Also, because of Natasha's quote in AOU: one less thing to worry about. So, what if it was something to worry about?)

Cross-posted on ao3...

...

A note before reading; a dedication:

Bucky was erased, and Natalia was broken, and there was a difference to that: when things are erased, there are indentations left; there are pieces of maps and fragments of memory, and they can help piece back together the past.

But when it is broken- it is irrevocably damaged, a china figurine smashed. All the glue in the world, all the king's horses and all the king's men- they couldn't put Humpty Dumpty back together again. Natalia was prettier than Humpty Dumpty, but she was no less fragile. Or: she was no stronger.

He had twenty years to experience the beauty of the world, its kindness; its warmth. Bucky Barnes had a brother and a family, he had a flat and women on his arm and even when he went to fucking war he had a team. Bucky Barnes had twenty years to dance and love and _live,_ and Natalia Romanova had nothing.

So this tale is one of bravery, yes. It is one of redemption and reclaiming what was lost and what was taken. It is one of triumph and love and resilience- but it is also a tale, you see, it is also a tale of a girl's humanity.

This is a tale of a girl who did not know love, who did not know kindness, who did not know mercy. This is a tale of a person who was broken and erased and broken once more, and this is a tale of how she took all those broken pieces and brought them back together, and how she found mercy and kindness and love inside of her against all the odds; this is a tale of Natalia Romanova's defiance, and this is a tale of Natalia Romanova's humanity.

This is also a story dedicated to one of my best friends in the world, who has just walked out of a war zone in Egypt. She was an embed with a group of soldiers (a reporter) before she was shot; she has been in PT for over a year now, and it was when she told me she really wanted one of these fics that I got the idea for this, and began writing it.

So I can say many things for this fic, but this above all: Sarah, you mean everything to me, and your strength is an inspiration to everyone who knows you.

…

...

Natalia moved through the hallways of the Red Room silently, easily. Her feet were bare and chilled against the stone floor- it was night- but the rest of her was focused on her destination, and her purposeful movements never paused.

They didn't knock; neither was stupid enough for that.

No, Natalia took care to squeak the tile two feet away with her bare toe, scuff a protruding piece of stone from the wall three times, and rasp a cloth over the wood banister. If he responded within three minutes- likely with another press of cloth over wood- she stepped inside; otherwise, she returned to her room.

She hoped- as she hadn't for years- that there was nobody inside. She didn't know if she could get the courage to return again.

Two minutes… 150 seconds…

Something knocked into the wall, muffled enough to appear an accident.

Natalia smiled, and slipped inside.

 _Zima Soldat-_ the Winter Soldier- was hunched over some plans for a frontal assault that the practicing Black Widows would participate in. She smiled, slightly- more a twitch of her lips than anything, but it was the equivalent of a laugh in anyone else.

"Was there something that you wanted?"

"Is there anything I _don't_ want with you around?" She asked wryly.

"Natashenka…"

She sighed. Zima had no appreciation for small-talk sometimes. "I tested some of my bloodwork yesterday, Zima. It… had some interesting results."

That got his attention. "Like what?"

"D'you remember that time last month, when we got a little… carried away?"

He turned, hazy blue eyes hardening to a stormier shade. "What do you mean?"

"I got some bloodwork tested." Natalia rolled her eyes when he scowled at her, deliberately casual. "I was careful, _as I always am,_ and did the whole thing by myself, over three nights. The bloodwork said that I had…" she inhaled, sharply, and then exhaled, balancing on the balls of her feet, ready to run or fight as needed. "That I had- well, I have, I suppose- high levels of hCG in my… blood."

"HCG?" Zima asked, and he only looked the worried of a man who thought his protégé was slightly ill.

Natalia resisted the urge to roll her eyes again. _Men._ Why did they need everything spelled out for them?

"I'm pregnant," she said bluntly.

There was a moment between her words and his comprehension, a moment that rested between them like a precious gift. Then his eyes widened, and Natalia almost laughed; she thought, half-despairingly, _they could not take this from you._

They had taken everything from Zima: love, laughter, life- but they had not taken the fear of a man who learned they were to be a father from him. They had taken it all, but _not this,_ and for this moment, she thought they could make it- she _believed._ For this moment, for this _feeling-_ Natalia might have given up the world. While her fears had not yet faded, they had lessened.

And then Zima's eyes narrowed.

Natalia didn't hesitate, not one moment; she checked him, full-on slammed her body up against his own until her hips were flush with his, until every possible inch of flesh was pressed to his.

She felt it, the minute shudders in his rib cage; maybe his heart, tattooing a rhythm against his lungs. His flesh hand clenched and unclenched around thin air, but that was better than around her neck.

"Do not step out that door," she gritted out into his ear. It was probably rougher than he was used to, probably less formal and more desperation, but it was all she _had._ "If you do-" her voice broke, for just an instant, and she thought she'd never forgive herself for that. "-if you do, you know what they will do to me. To _us."_

"The blood," he said, tendons standing out in his neck, but Zima wasn't fighting and he could always, _always_ beat her.

She dared- pressed a hand to the smooth arch of his neck, right on his windpipe. It was as much of an order as she would get, and that he didn't toss her away was as much as a concession he would give.

"Gone." Natalia fluttered her fingers against his pulse point. "I took care of it. Nobody knows. It's all destroyed."

Finally, after a long, _long_ moment, he relaxed. It was deliberate and could have meant nothing, but it was enough for her. She stepped back.

He dragged a hand down his face, and when he spoke it was rough. "You know what you have to do."

Her breath caught- Natalia did know, had known for three hours. She had read the results with a steady hand and walked down the hall to her room, burned everything with a calm that she couldn't have possibly felt. She had sat for hours on her bed, rubbing her fingers in ash and terrified out of her mind.

(But he had felt fear, hadn't he?)

"If I tell them you know what they will do," she said quietly. She was not successful at keeping the fear or bitterness out of her tone, but she could and did manage dignity. "You know they will drug me to an inch of my life, they will drug me and then they will take the memory of this and you and everything that makes me _me,_ and then they will do the same to you and then they will take my child and…" she breathed, once, in and out, "-and that I cannot allow, Zima." She met his eyes, let him see the defiance and the fear, in equal measure.

"Then get rid of it," he said forcefully.

Natalia froze. She should. She should go outside and get an abortion; it wasn't as if it would be completely impossible. A short run and a long night, and when she walked back there would be no fears resting in her belly.

But how to explain this… feeling, inside of her? It was desperation and wanting, in equal measure; a twist right beneath her breastbone of both fear and a blazing, burning hope.

Natalia hadn't felt this much in forever.

And, god, she wanted to keep that feeling inside of her. If that was accomplished by the child in her belly, then _fine-_ nobody had ever called Natalia Romanova unselfish.

"I have known you for, what, three years?" She asked sharply, but with the weight of knowledge like a lodestone behind it. "Three years, Zima, and I have killed and hurt and bled for you. I would have died for you, if you asked, and I-" she broke off, rallied together sharply. "-three years, and I have never asked you for _anything."_

Zima stared at her.

She went on, stumbling slightly over the syllables in her head though they came out smooth, almost rehearsed. "I am calling in those debts, Zima. Every person I've killed that you could have, each drop of blood on my hands. Three years, and I… I want this. You know that if you walk out that door I'll be dead. But I _want this,_ Zima, _I want this._ Maybe it's wrong, but I can't stop and- please.

"If you want me to beg, Zima, I will."

He was still unmoving, still a statue, but he also looked paler than before, tensed, breathing ragged. His metal hand gleamed in the lowlight.

"I… we… are tools," he whispered finally, blue eyes catching hers. She remained still and frozen. "A child, to raise as our own isn't-"

"I want this, Zima."

He inhaled, slow and steady, but there was a jagged edge to it. Something fractured, came away in the muscles of his face, as if one last thing, one key memory, had been recovered. She waited.

And he said, "We have to run."

…

They escaped the next week, but it was seven days of absolute torture for both of them. A balance, between doing things quickly and staying under the radar, had to be struck- it was a very, _very_ good thing Natalia knew where food and clothes were kept, because Zima was getting the weapons.

And then they had it all, and she slipped like a naiad through the shadows to his room, gathering the scraps she'd hidden over the week in little stashes. She didn't even need to knock; Zima stepped out before she was even down the hall.

"Ready?"

He didn't nod, but he did turn- with military precision- to her.

Their escape was slow, if methodical; a patient stride eating up the ground. Neither was willing to stop, at first- every hour of sleep was one not dedicated to running away.

But, in the end, it was Natalia who told him to stop; her hands trembling with exhaustion and her face grey. She was more worried about the baby than she was for herself, but there were going to be concessions made for both of them soon enough. They might be machines, but the truth is this: even machines falter.

Her heart stuttered against her ribs, hard; almost hurting. Zima led her further into the woods, then, not letting her stop- if she had, she didn't think she could get up again.

And Natalia felt _furious._ Just three months back she had run three miles in fifteen minutes; now, she was reduced to hyperventilating after seven hours of a brisk walk. A week ago she had wanted this baby, but now she felt it curling along her insides like a tapeworm, just waiting to suck nutrients and life out of the mother.

Why had she thought this a good idea?

Zima had been right, as he always was. She could not be a mother; how could she take care of a child, when she didn't know how to care for herself?

"Natalia," Zima said, then, and his voice wasn't angry; wasn't loud. She cringed, though, curled up further and set her shoulders so her face wouldn't be broken, no matter what. In the Red Room, girls were taught to preserve their faces over their bones. Our looks, she thought, are more important than the truth.

"Natalia," Zima said again, and he sounded like someone had punched him in the gut.

Natalia looked up at him, and stumbled over a tree root. Her hand had been wrapped around Zima's upper arm, so when she went down he did too. They landed in a heap of tangled limbs, and though Natalia got up swearing under her breath, she did feel a flare of warmth beneath her breastbone to think that he would not hit her.

At least, she murmured to herself, in the safety of her mind, he would not hit her as long as she had his child inside of her; the child was as much protection, she realized, as it was parasite.

…

Zima led Natalia steadily south, far enough that it began to feel less like an endless winter and more like a weak spring. Rarely did they actually approach towns, but when they did they were careful. It was only for medicine or food that they went in for, and even then they kept it simple; no fanfare. Just a young man and younger wife enjoying the meal laid out in front of them.

Even rarer did they sleep in rooms or inns. The fall of the Soviets had not yet happened, was not even expected; but men were always weaker than regimes: Khrushchev's fall was sudden, and the Red Room had hinged too much information on him to continue unchecked; it was a body-blow, certainly, but not a fatal one. Yet shadow organizations were always seen as separated from the government; the government benefited from scientific advancements and quietly funneled money to it- a silent agreement to let sleeping dogs lie. There were too many skeletons in closets to ever fully weed out the Red Room. Even as their empire fell, they carved new handholds and settled deeper into their niches.

Natalia was glad of it- if nothing else, it gave the two of them some cover. When a thousand black rats fled a burning ship, few noticed the white ones.

…

Three weeks later, Zima ran away.

He had left Natalia in a careful hollow, beneath a tree, with their food and the branches. It had started snowing the night before and they had decided to stop for the night- both could taste the storm that was coming.

He fell asleep curved around her slight form, metal arm flush with her waist. It was freezing outside and not much better within; she had twitched closer over the hours until they were sharing the two blankets and were wrapped around each other. It had felt like lovers- like intimacy; like _love._

But he was a tool, and even in the hands of the best he was still a tool- just a better one. A person makes a sword useful, even if the sword is honed.

And what right did he, killer and death-dealer and _fucking fist of Hydra-_ what right did he have to this life? To sleeping with a young woman and raising a family- _what right did he have?_

So Zima ran, tucked the blankets in around Natalia before he left, but ran. The snow outside stung his eyes and wrapped in his hair; he thought that if he died there, at least he died true to his name. Winter, they called him, and winter would be his death: snow, and ice, and a fall across mountains-

Zima stumbled in the snow and curled onto his side. It was freezing, and then blazing; his skin could no longer understand the difference. The sensation of both pain and pleasure wormed its way into the crevices of his being, right up until he couldn't think anymore- right up until he felt whittled down to sensation and painpainpain _pain._

He didn't know when he moved, but Hydra's protocols had always been clear: defend oneself; move as needed.

(A feeling, in the back of his throat- of the step, between falling and living forever. This is the truth of Bucky Barnes: he hung onto the beam because he couldn't die, and when he let go he thought he'd always live. It was true, but his truth is this: he called himself immortal and _believed it.)_

Muscle memory, or something deeper, dug into the muscles of his calf- a leash, drawing him back from where he'd come. A warmth and a fear, a curdling spark in his gut alighted of sickening love.

But he moved, and he returned to the hollow under the tree.

Another memory, this time not of fear; of warmth: a book in the curve of his palm, script smooth across the cream of the page; a tree lit with candles and a thin body hugging him, bony chin digging into his shoulder- the title of the book spelled out in wide letters: _The Legend of Sleepy Hollow._

He tripped walking in- Natalia had laid out a trip wire. When he looked up at her, she was hunched over the small fire; there were thin, knobby sticks at the base, and her arm was wrapped around her legs, which were drawn up to her chin. Face turned away she looked _tiny-_ but when she returned his stare with a level one- a particularly potent mix of sarcasm, fear, and hope in it unique to her- she looked somewhere between sixty and ninety.

That look, thought Zima, did not belong on the face of a seventeen year old girl, no matter her past.

"I'm- I'm sorry," he said roughly, into the whorling spaces between the two of them. It felt like a storm, building under his skin; the lightning sparking along imaginary tendons, rain spackling fantasy ligaments. He said, 'I'm sorry,' but what Zima meant was this: _you could do better._

And Natalia- the smart, so terribly brilliant girl, she didn't snort; didn't deflect. Her green eyes- usually the shade of ferns, tucked beneath shady oaks- darkened, as if a log had shifted on flames and thrown up sparks. The firelight lit up the bottom of her face, highlighting her sharp cheekbones and hollowed cheeks.

But then she said: "You were always coming back."

He blinked; arched a brow. "How-"

She shifted, a deliberate arch of her spine. It pressed her belly forward against the baggy clothing she wore, and he saw the delicate curve across it, a bulge that didn't belong, he hadn't thought; Natalia curled back when he didn't respond, hunching her shoulders a fraction inwards.

She thought he didn't care. She thought she'd miscalculated; that he'd returned for himself, for the warmth and nothing more.

And how could he say no- when it had been? It had been survival, and Hydra's protocols- nothing more. But also: nothing less.

"I… yes," he said, finally. "I- couldn't run. Not far."

To that, Natalia smiled. It was full of teeth and bleeding, black, _festering_ humor.

"Good," she said. "I'm glad."

…

The snowstorm lasted a long time; their already meager supply of food and firewood dwindled to ash as the days passed. Zima stalked- there was no other word for it- around the small hollow, head and shoulders half-bent to accommodate the low ceiling. He looked, by turns, annoyed and furious: Hydra had only ever woken him up for missions, and then put him in cryo; he had never had to deal much with the silence before the action.

Natalia curled onto her side and closed her eyes. In a way, it helped that she was as good as locked up; the Red Room had never had any compunctions on keeping their silence on the 'graduation ceremony,' and there were bleeding edges in her mind, sharp and deadly.

She had been seven when she had her first op, truly undercover; she masqueraded as the illegitimate daughter of a highly-respected scientist in Minsk. The purpose had been to throw him off his game long enough for a real Black Widow to garrote him, and it had been carried out flawlessly.

But this was what she remembered: the sickeningly cheap tropical-floral scent that masqueraded as expensive that her handler had worn the entire time; the sunlight glinting off her fake-father's glasses as he walked down a street; the faint sound of wrens that could only be heard at sunrise and sunset.

 _People deserve that pleasure_ , she could remember thinking. But also, in the next breath- _I have so much better to do_.

This child, this person she held in her bones, in her muscles, this child was the first thing Natalia could remember _desiring._ A bone-deep yearning that went beyond just want- beyond necessities to the direct core of _her;_ it went deeper than air or water or food or warmth, just this knowledge that she _might_ be pregnant.

And then, a memory flashed before her eyes: Ivan Petrovich, holding her arms back- she's naked, and struggling not to shiver in the cool metal room. He whispers " _I love you, Natalia, when you break I'll be there, you're so beautiful, beautiful, beautiful-"_ The murmurs taper off as the whipping starts, or she just can't hear him any longer.

Afterwards, he wraps her bleeding, broken body in mulberry silk and tells her, in her ear, " _I will make you sharper than a sword, Natalia, lovelier than the moon, an instrument to make the world break, oh, Natalia!"_

She was on the cusp of something important-

"I am an instrument," she whispered, feeling the crackle of flames across her face. "To make the world break."

But no- she wasn't, she _wasn't_ just that- she felt pain and cold and _yearning…_

The truth was that Natalia _felt._

"I," she said, numb and broken, because Ivan had _lied-_ her handler, he had _lied._ "I," she said, over the flames, "am a person."

Zima stared at her.

Something cracked over her mind, and pain washed over her body: a badly set bone breaking once more, only this time: it would heal correctly.

"I am," she said once more, before the world turned dark, "a person."

…

Three days later they were back on the road, moving south.

Zima tried to run, again.

This time, Natalia pounced on him before he could leave; they fought.

Her arms locked around his neck and his left shoulder dug into her temple- then his hands were taut against her eyes, and she was struggling to strangle him, to hold him down, while he tried to claw her eyes out.

It should have been useless, because Zima had always beaten Natalia, even before she'd been unbalanced by the swell of her belly, but it wasn't- he didn't swing his metal arm too much, and even though they went down in a roil of teeth and nails, neither actually drew blood or broke bones.

This should have been useless, but it wasn't: Natalia flipped them both upside down so she was straddling his waist, and dug her nails into his chest.

"You don't want this," she panted.

"I hate you," he snarled at her, teeth flecked with rusty blood. But Natalia knew him; knew him well: what he meant was, _don't run away._ What he meant was, _don't let me run away._

That should have been the end of it, but there was also this- a feeling, low in her belly, of warmth. A coil in her gut, and the slightest dilation of his pupils.

But this was forgotten, because there was also this- terror, and love, and a dependency so necessary they couldn't live without the other.

So she trusted him, then, to do the same to her- bring her down, hold her down, keep her down until the itch under her skin faded. They did it to each other, and this feeling of confidence, of belief, of absolute, unwavering, rock-solid faith- it stabilized them.

There were days- and she thought there always would be- when that weight pressed against her shoulders felt like too much. She'd see Zima and stagger, because who were they, to dance the paths of normality? Of humanity?

But then she would remember a night in the darkness; a snowstorm that should have killed them; a feeling like tumbling- _like flying-_ over the edge of something necessary, of something essential.

"I am a person," she would say, and they would be the four hardest words she'd ever said.

…

"Do you remember our first time?" Natalia asked as they walked.

She wore a brown smock and a peasant-woman's rough clothing, stolen from a nearby backyard-clothes-line, feet laced into knee-high boots. It was cold, but the sun was out, and it was a beautiful day.

Zima was dressed in the same kind of clothing, if a little awkwardly fitting; he was muscled and angular, but he was also _tall,_ and the area they were in didn't really have too many tall men that could lose a pair of clothes and not think too much on it.

"What first time?"

Natalia blinked, and her hand went down to cup her stomach protectively. "Just- our, you know, our first time."

"Then," he said, voice remaining flat, "I should ask you, our first time doing what?"

"Having sex."

The word hung in the air between them, hard and unforgiving. But Natalia didn't pay attention to that- all her focus was on the man next to her, who had stumbled for perhaps the first time since she'd known him.

"Natalia-"

"They took that from you," she murmured, and felt her voice fall into something resembling disappointment- wasn't that supposed to be special, her first time?

It hadn't been particularly romantic, of course, but that wouldn't have happened anyways; Natalia had been sixteen when her handler had told her to pick a man to seduce. She had been given three months to follow through on it.

So she had vacillated, for the first time in her career, wrapping her thoughts around each other, twining them together and debating with herself for weeks- right up until she saw Zima Soldat, saw the shadows under his eyes and heavy shoulders- she had thought that would be the closest she would come to love, that feeling like unspooling thread in her sternum.

But he hadn't realized what she was pushing, what she was crafting, the web she spun like so much thin glass. He had confused her as much as she had, she thought now.

A full month, of slow glances and longer touches- right up until she was too frustrated to leave it well enough alone, to choose an easier mark- and then she was sparring, like she had every week, but this time they put her against Olga, who was much better at straight-up hand to hand combat. Natalia fought dirty, but Olga fought fair.

And this time Natalia knew she couldn't beat Olga; the emptiness for fighting didn't bite in her lungs as she wanted, as she expected.

And she had ran then, after the sparring match, beat-up and bruised, because, pinned-down and panting, she had reached an epiphany: Zima Soldat didn't understand arousal.

So, she told herself, she would teach him.

When Natalia kissed Zima, her teeth were copper-rich and iron-flecked. The rhythm of bullets echoed down her spine and she was five feet of pent-up tension, of desperation, of _need._

(His hands steadied her hips when he kissed her back, and his spine bent like a man who knew what he was doing.)

(This was Hydra's secret: you can never unspool a man. Men are not machines. There is no break, no fissure, no crack. There is no sign that a man is broken.)

"They took everything from me," he said, and it wasn't on a small room in the Red Room- it was a bright-lit street on the road to absolutely fucking nowhere.

"Not me," she replied, sharply. "Not us. This- they didn't take this."

He sighed. "They will, though. They- I just-" he exhaled harshly. "I've done this before. The same thing happens, time and again. They take and take and take and I just-"

"I," Natalia whispered, because things like this; vows like this- you whispered them, no matter if it was in the sunlight, no matter if it couldn't be kept- "won't let them take you."

He didn't answer, and she held the silence, too, but one thought wouldn't leave her: if he believed so deeply that they would be caught, then why did he walk out with her?

…

It was twenty-nine days when they were sighted.

Zima acknowledged that this was a little longer than expected; the Red Room and Hydra both enjoyed great influence. The chances of escaping the country or leaving them behind for good weren't really chances- they were impossibilities.

Natalia was bargaining with a street vendor a few meters away- they had only ten kopecks when the wheel of cheese they wanted cost twelve. They had learned the hard way that Zima's reaction to an unfair price was more of a threaten-until-they-give-in-or-look-absolutely-menacing-otherwise approach, and that didn't precisely _work_ with Russian merchants who spent half the year in Sakha- they had seen worse, their unimpressed stares returned.

Natalia was a little better, which was why she interacted with the general population and Zima sat back and glared at anyone who dared come too close.

Which was why he realized that there was something wrong before he'd even seen it: a prickle, running down the knobs of his spine.

"Fuck," he hissed under his breath, but it wasn't in Russian; the word slipped out in a long-voweled twang, distinctively American.

There was no time for him to dwell on that, though; a quiet sweep of the visible marketplace revealed at least three operatives converging on Natalia's location. The problem that Zima recognized was that these three were the ones he recognized. There would almost definitely be more coming, if they weren't there already.

They hadn't noticed him, yet.

 _This,_ he promised, _will be their last mistake._

Half-formed memories had coalesced a few days back, memories of a glorious escape, a beautiful freedom-

but he wasn't anyone to feel _free;_ he was a weapon. Guns did not weep.

-he had said _they will take you away,_ and Natalia had said _I won't let them._ He didn't know what he had done to deserve that fierce shield, that proud chin- but she had said it, and the irony, the joke was that he believed her.

If she protected him, he protected her.

Zima moved forward, hunching through the crowd like a ghost, like his name. He approached Natalia at the booth and wrapped an arm around her shoulders; the sudden tension in her frame disappeared immediately- hidden, not gone- when he whispered in her ear, "Three known, bravo and foxtrot. Five beats, too many wits."

A quick shorthand: three known operatives, coming in from behind and front; if they waited five beats they could escape because there were too many witnesses to start a firefight.

She nodded, and they slipped out the back, using the shadows as cloaking- but he felt a quiet shiver again.

Before he could even react, a gunshot rang out, and then he was _moving:_ shoving Natalia down, flipping his knife out of the sheath and balancing it on his hand. One breath later, he could hear the near-silent click of a cartridge slotting into a gun- but the difference was this: near-silent, not silent.

The knife flew straight and true, and he slid past it, liquidly, capturing the woman before she could slide to the ground. She had blond hair, the color of an iceless sunrise: yellow, edging on colorless. Zima left no signs in that clearing apart from a dead operative, and blood drying on frost-crusted leaves.

Natalia glared at him when he walked back, flesh hand stained a dull chartreuse.

"This is my duty," she said coldly, "as much as yours. I won't stand by while you take all the risk."

Zima paused, and thought, and remembered- or thought he remembered, he could never be sure- a man at his side, when he woke up from a freezing sleep. The man said, we can help you, which all his handlers said, but he also said: thank you, for carrying our burden. This is a responsibility. This is a glorious responsibility. Thank you.

"This is our _burden,"_ he corrected, but then, because he could remember a furious heat inside of him; a freezing burn- to walk back to his handlers, to return to what is known, to what is safe, but then, Zima said, "and I can carry what I can carry- if that is more than you today, fine- but perhaps you will be more tomorrow."

Natalia fell silent. That night, her hands sketched pale patterns in the night sky; white doves tracing over constellations.

She did not say thank you, but she did walk closer to him than ever before.

…

They passed the Crimea, as Natalia entered her second trimester.

It was no longer possible to hide her condition; the curve of her stomach had become more and more defined, and even the baggiest clothes couldn't hide it anymore.

So they didn't- Natalia introduced herself as Anya Barbu- the Russian wife of a Romanian shopkeeper. They were ones of thousands, fleeing and vacillating, and nobody bothered to look twice at them.

…

They snuck on a boat headed to Constanta, and she watched as Russia disappeared behind her.

Then she took a ceramic knife in hand, and walked to the stern of the boat; Zima followed her. An angle pressed across the smooth metal engraving of the Romanov family crest-

 _(the first gift she'd ever had, from Ivan: a knife bearing the family crest of an extinct royal family)_

-popped it open, to the small black triangle that glowed a faint blue in the middle: a transmitter.

Zima didn't move, didn't breathe. He had gone very still behind her, but she didn't touch him; this was her penance, not his. He had two knives too, and they would get more if necessary, but this was _needed:_ this letting-go of her past.

Blood still spotted the edge of it- there had not been time or energy to clean it since their last mission in Odessa.

She crushed the transmitter between two fingers and sprinkled the remains into the Black Sea. The knife she left on the deck of the sloop, lodged unobtrusively.

It didn't lessen the load on her shoulders; didn't feel much like a penance. But when she turned away and walked onto Romanian soil, there was a fierce, proud, aching warmth in her gut that reminded her of listening to Ivan's praises- praises she thought she'd no longer care much for.

 _This,_ she thought, looking up at Zima, who had her tucked under his right arm because his left was a split second faster and bulletproof, because he could protect her like this, _this is what I will fight for._

…

They snuck across the border into Yugoslavia.

Natalia gave Zima a ring to wear on his right hand.

(She called him Toma. She told him to call her Nada, and he did.)

(It meant _nothing,_ to him. To everyone around them, it meant _hope.)_

…

In France, they traveled aimlessly; Natalia wanted to see Marseilles, so they spent two weeks there, admiring the pale stone edifices and pink tiled roofs. Twice, he ducked away from her, but he didn't make it past the city proper before returning; each time, with a gift in hand: pressed lavender, or pretty combs, or soft scarves.

(He might have felt guiltier had she not ran thrice, and returned with only scratched pink tiles in hand.)

Then they headed north, slower- Natalia couldn't bear too-long nights any longer, or walking too often. After the seventh day of muffled hisses, he finally lost his patience and hot-wired a car. It could have put them on the radar and she never did thank him- but it didn't matter. That night she slept with her back to him for the first time.

But then- but then they were in Lille, and Zima might well have left Natalia for good, too many memories rushing through him; too much pain wringing his muscles like wet rags. He was on the roof of the Hydra safe-house when he heard it:

" _They've issued a kill order, for the girl. Apparently the Soldat has some use left to them, so it's another round in the brainwashing for him."_

 _"_ _I heard they went through Marseilles. Soldat wanted some flowers or somethin'- god, Barnes was always a romantic. I'm looking forward to the cryo freeze for him."_

"No," he whispered, curling in on himself. Then, once more: "No."

Because Natalia had held up pink tiles for him, the same shade of dawn on a battlefield-morning; her eyes shone the unrestrained apologies her lips wouldn't form. Because he could walk back into cryo, but Natalia had spent five months chanting _I am a person._ Because he might be Zima Soldat, but the Hydra handler had called him _Barnes._

"I will not kill her," he said.

And then he was swamped in another memory: grey-toned, and bitter; the taste of ash and gunmetal on his tongue, and the smell of rotting blood in his lungs.

The feel of a pistol in his grip, and a woman at the other end: French, babbling wildly, on her knees in mud.

And a man, German, his superior officer; but Zima was in deep cover, was given this pistol to prove his loyalty because people thought he was flagging, and his trial was this- a French civilian on her knees, and he was told to put a bullet in her brain.

One beat passed, then two-

He swung the pistol up, aimed straight at the heart of his officer, and shot, once, then twice.

Then he ran, with the woman, and saved her brother too; Dernier always did like Bucky best-

 _(my name is bucky.)_

-Lille returned- the smell of clay and smoke, the grip of tiles on his hands.

And a part of him said he should be hyperventilating; should be furious and launching himself at these men who dared to think he could be lessened to a tool, to anything less than a whole of a person, a whole fucking _human being._

But Natalia was three streets away, and she didn't know how close he'd come to killing her. Or worse: forgetting her.

So he stole away, slid into the streets and back to Natalia. He wrapped his arms around her and presented her with a polyester lily with a sheepish grin and closed his eyes and tried not to dream of war.

…

Over their desperate, six-month-long escapade across Europe, they had sat together right before they went to bed: tossing sticks on fires, lounging on beds in crappy motels, hunched together on rides or boats; they had sat together and confessed.

Natalia went first. On good days, she said, "I am Natalia Alianovna," and called it a triumph; naming herself the daughter of a man meant her mother couldn't be Russia. On the best days, she said, "I am a person," and meant each word desperately, with every fiber of her being. But on the worst, she said, "I am the Black Widow."

Then she'd say more: a recitation of things she remembered; things she thought. The things they'd seen, missions she recalled. Secrets, spilled across the yawning gap between them, heavy and deadening.

But then, oh, then she began saying fragile things; dangerous things.

"I want," she'd say, and then, "I hope. I need. I like."

And then, on a hot night in Marseilles, curved under Zima, "I won't go back."

Zima had nothing to answer her with, at first- no memories, no thoughts. He was a blank slate, a string of ones and zeroes, but on the sloop he said, after her daily recitation had ended, "I hate spring."

Why? It had no reason, no rhyme; flowers sprang open, and the world blossomed- why didn't he like it? It had nothing to do with his name, why-

Two memories, one laid on the other: a boy, painfully thin, collarbone sharp enough to cut butter; a man, strong-jawed and firm, wrapping an arm around his waist.

-and the boy coughed when spring came, because when flowers blossomed pollen exploded and he had to work three jobs to get medicine for him; spring meant long nights and longer days and a breathless worry caught in his gut.

That was all he said, for weeks: "I hate spring. I hate spring. I hate spring."

But then he whispered, right after Natalia whispered _I won't go back,_ "I had a sister."

These were confessions; dirty secrets tucked into their breaths. Natalia began it only when the light had faded, as if the darkness was its own weight, as if the night could protect them.

(What do monsters have to fear, in the dark?)

(What were they, if they weren't monsters?)

They were in Lille; it was bare hours after he'd walked back to Natalia. The hotel room they'd rented was small, but they drew curtains around the windows and settled on the floor, close enough to reach out and touch; far enough to not feel crowded.

Natalia began, because this was what she did: she stole back her pieces with a tempest-controlled fury and laid them out, one by one, in the sunlight; a violent defiance. But after she was done, after that, he built up his own truths; his own secrets. He laid them out in front of Natalia and it was only when he first felt the words _I want_ on his lips that he understood the terrible, fierce, _beautiful_ trust she had placed in him: they could break, because they were human, because they were no longer tools, but secrets meant so much less than desires, than wants- with this knowledge, he could _erase her._ With this trust, Natalia could erase him.

And his breath came in shallow gasps and stuttered in his lungs, but he got them out, finally: "I want to live."

"Then," Natalia said, and she was Anya and Nada and Nicole, but at the core of it all, at the heart of her she was so much more: her names were her stories, but she was more than the sum of her words. "Then," said Natalia, "you will live."

"I think my name was Bucky," he said.

He thought she smiled; her fingers traced the lines of his palms. "I think," she said softly, "that your name _is_ Bucky."

A choked silence, and then the rapport of a gun sounded in his mind, and his stomach swooped over a thousand-foot-fall; he flinched.

"I…" he said, because how was he supposed to end that sentence? _Want, need, like-_

"I am Bucky," he said, and it felt like a prayer.

…

"Do you remember the electric chair?"

"…yes."

"What about the cryo tube?"

"Yes."

"Hydra said that order comes from pain. So… did it hurt?"

"No."

"Then what was it like?"

"It was like- like ice. Creeping down into your bones, so deep you can't think of anything else, so sharp it never leaves. But… it doesn't hurt, not at all."

…

"I fell."

"I burned."

"They erased me."

"They broke me."

"I want to live."

"I want to give."

…

Memories returned faster for Bucky, then- Natalia called him Gerard when outside, but when he flinched she always returned to Zima.

In their hotel rooms all she said was Bucky.

…

They crossed the border to Germany and here, Bucky was filled with memories; was engorged with them: two worlds and two times, wrapping around each other like ghosts, like partners that never managed to dance.

Here, there was a stationmaster's office, there- there was a liquor store the Commandos raided, he knew this street, he knew those lamps, he knew this land-

He knew _nothing._

"Everything's gone," he choked out, and didn't know whether he hung onto Natalia or it was the other way around.

Her fingers wrapped around his chin and tipped his face down. She could have said, "it lives in you," or "it will never go, not as long as you remember," but these were quiet condolences, and Bucky had earned the right to his mourning.

So she said, "Yes." And, "I'm sorry." and felt so inadequate, as her fake-husband wrapped her in arms made of metal and flesh, as she stood on a street that, not a quarter-century back, was a battle-ground.

They walked away, then, from this history, from this story: Natalia had taught herself that it could be a choice and Bucky had fought for it all his life. They were the past, they were the future, but this they would always be: the present.

So this, they traced: rivers, and mountains, and endless fields of sunflowers. Natalia learned to smile because it made her happy, and to wrap her hands around her belly because it left her warm.

(She dreamed of flames. He dreamed of guns. They slept together and in the morning, they whispered their nightmares.)

There would always be death in her veins; there would always be blood, too. But this would always be her truth: the choices would forever after be hers, to wield the sword or aim the gun or slice the garrote.

"I was a soldier," Bucky whispered, once, after a nightmare, and Natalia said, "we were all soldiers."

…

Did it terrify them?

Yes. They were only human.

But, you see, this is the story- they were _human._

…

It was an unseasonably hot night in Denmark.

Natalia lay on a bed of pine needles, stomach jutting out- it was hard to find comfort, nowadays, even when she sat in the car most of the time. Still, this was more comfortable than anything else she could think of, for now.

Then she shifted, and at this angle she could see Bucky, and he was asleep- she did not make the mistake of thinking him defenseless, but this was how he looked: relaxed, and while he would never look unconditionally happy, he did look happier than he ever looked during the day.

The firelight had faded to distant flickers, which threw a faintly orange light on his skin. Bucky had told her about his conquests- or his dames, as it were- but they hadn't been told with a leer or a smirk. This was as much a triumph as any memory, perhaps moreso: this had happiness alone attached to it. Each memory retrieved was a _fuck you_ to the people who had taken them.

And he had told her those stories, but she hadn't drawn the natural corollary; there had to have been a reason for that many girls to fall in love with Bucky Barnes.

Here, in the gentle, scraping truth of the firelight, she watched him. Bucky's lips were full, the curve a dark shadow against the flickering crescents of his cheeks; his eyes were closed, and the lashes drew long shadows against his cheekbones.

Natalia had known Zima Soldat was handsome, but she had not chosen him, she had not wanted him for that. It had been a quiet recognition: Zima is attractive.

But this, she hadn't thought: Bucky Barnes is handsome, but also- more handsome, a thousand times, a million times more than the Winter Soldier.

There was beauty, she realized, with the sudden snap of clarity in her lungs, like a breath of cold air after stepping out of an oppressively heated room. There was beauty beyond functionality.

"He," Natalia whispered, not to Bucky, not to the world, not to herself; to her _child-_ the first words she would ever speak to them, "is so beautiful, so very, very lovely. And, they tell me, so am I. You, you will be lovelier than the stars and the sun and the moon itself, you will be so beautiful… you will be so very beautiful."

The baby didn't answer, but Natalia fell asleep, and she dreamed: a small house, in a small street, and a little girl running around in the yard, with brown hair like Bucky and green eyes like Natalia.

…

Bucky built a world into Natalia's bones, a life into her breaths. She was five foot nothing, thin around the ankles, sharp around the wrists, swollen along her belly- and she was Bucky's everything.

Because he was no longer Bucky Barnes, no longer the sidekick, but also: no longer the villain. He fell, but this was his story: he walked out.

…

By the eighth month, she craved for the cold- so Bucky took her north. Past Norway, into Iceland; avoiding planes and taking ferries. They stumbled on the docks because they'd spent more time on boats than not, and she grinned into the collar of his coat when he wrapped an arm around her waist.

"Let's go to Black Falls," he told her, and she shrugged. Natalia was here for the cold, and nothing else. If he wanted to see the sun rise and fall for the entire time, she was okay with that, too.

So they went, and they saw it, and Natalia thought about the thundering crash of water; she could feel the droplets across the slope of her nose, and her teeth ached from the chill. She thought, _this will be there when I am gone, when he is gone, when my child is gone. I fight for them, but I think I might just die for this._

…

And then: they hopped islands.

Natalia dyed both their heads blonde; Bucky was tall enough to pull off a native Icelander, and after they went over the basics of Icelandic the picture was complete- native Icelanders back to their hometown.

When they reached a town, she stayed on the sled while Bucky went to get some more supplies for them and the dogs. Snow started to flake down on them, the thin, powdery kind: catching on everything and melting, but beautiful before it began.

Her hands were wrapped in mittens, but she was immature enough to hold out an arm and laugh, delightedly, when a snowflake landed right on the tip.

"You are beautiful, child," an old voice said, and she startled.

Her eyes met the woman's. She was old and wrinkled; her skin was almost translucent. Her eyes were blue, though; bluer than a summer sky.

"Thank you," Natalia said, after a pause. Too many people had called her beautiful for it to have much meaning; it was like calling her green-eyed, or five-foot. Call her intelligent, or fast, or deadly- and then, then she would smile sharply. "My name is Anaya."

The woman nodded. "I am… _vitur kona._ The wise woman. Perhaps you would like to have some tea?"

Natalia didn't nod. She didn't want to move, actually. The sky was grey and snow was falling and she had never thought there could be beauty in the cold, not for all the winters she had spent in Russia.

But this woman had approached her, and it hadn't been for the novelty, she didn't think; not for her prettiness, either. Natalia was seventeen winters full of dismissal and anger, and maybe it was time to let the snow melt- her child deserved a spring, didn't it?

"Yes," she said, and it was shy: letters stuttering around each other in a strange language. "Thank you."

They moved inside, and Natalia shed the thick mittens in favor of wrapping around the mug.

The tea was almost flavorless: watery and thin. A faint hint of herbs threaded through it, but she thought she loved it for its heat more than anything.

"You love him," the woman said.

Natalia startled. "I don't," she began, but it wasn't quite true: Natalia didn't really trust him.

But he had given her a car, and a scarf, and flowers, and this cold, cold land. He hadn't once hit her, and he hadn't once tried to hurt her. Her handlers had told her to choose a man to seduce and she had chosen well, but she also remembered how slow he went their first time; even erased, he had been kind. She had walked into his rooms and told him about her pregnancy, and his jaw had firmed as he said, "Let's go."

She couldn't imagine walking away from him.

And if that wasn't love…

"I do," she said, and was surprised to hear that she meant it.

The woman smiled. "May I see your palm?"

Natalia held it out. The woman's wrinkled fingers traced over her small hands, and Natalia thought of saying, _there was a scar there that came from a whipping_ , and _I think the closest man I had to a father figure laughed when I cried_ , and _they have erased my scars and my mind and my loves again and again and again._ _What truths, what futures do you think you can find in the lines of my palms_?

"I am a piece of the past," the woman said, blue eyes knowing. "But I can also tell the future."

"There are many people who claim to do so."

"And many ask for a price. As do I-" she held up a hand. "Not from you, child. This, I do for free, because… you look like you need some direction."

"No," Natalia said softly. "I really don't."

She did, but what she meant was: Not from you.

"You do not think the future is worth knowing?"

Natalia smiled grimly. She had lied, had cheated, had stole and fought and killed to get here. But she could now say _I am a person_ without flinching, and didn't call her title the sum of her being. The future was worth knowing, but only as much as stock could be put in it: useless if people thought it the total.

"I think I'd much rather have a cup of hot tea than knowledge," she said blandly. "Too many people have told me to be something I didn't want to be, and the future's changeable. I don't know if I'd want to live in a world where it isn't."

The woman smiled again, and this time there was an honest regard there; a real warmth. "Then let us sit, _systir._ If you don't have need of the future, then let us enjoy the present."

Later, Bucky wrapped her in the mittens, hands just as careful as he could manage in twenty degrees below zero, and she felt a weight on her heart. But this was a good weight; a straightforward one: love, she thought, she suspected. The kind of love that tethered you to the ground and shifted the axis of the world a few inches: straight to your lover.

They went on the sled for miles, then, cold wind cutting into her cheeks and slicing her palms.

And night fell, and the stars shone brighter than she had ever seen them- silent and twinkling and so very distant. There were worlds and balls of hot gas out there; her ancestors had stared up at the same stars in the same sky and thought their gods had carved up pieces for their heroes to hang, silent and beautiful, watching over their world once more.

And the aurora borealis-

"Oh," Natalia said, as the sky shone undulating waves of toxic green, electric blue, hints of purple and pink threaded throughout.

Bucky grinned at her. "Nice, huh? My- Steve, you know, my friend, he wanted to see this for a real long time." The smile faded, slightly, before tacking up on one side again. "'M sorry he didn't get to."

They were alone there, and it seemed that there was nobody else in the world: just her and her love, and the remote stars shining down.

"I am Natalia Alianovna Romanova," she began, and he stiffened; rolled over and looked at her. There was a furrow between his brows- he knew that she said that on the good days, but not the best. She let her smile reach her eyes but not her voice as she continued: "And I am a person. I…" she breathed, in and out, cold, freezing air in her lungs and warmth in her hands. "…am the Black Widow.

"And I don't want to be the sum of my past."

A breath, and then two, and she closed her eyes, tucked a hand around her belly, and laughed _hard._ It had taken her eight months to get here, to this frozen tundra and this silent night. Eight long months, and it would probably never be enough for her.

But this, this truth, it had sat in her gut all her life. Broken, bent, bleeding: they had taken it all from Natalia but not this, because this was _who she was._ They could not take this without killing her.

"Zima," she said, and looked at him steadily. He stared back, blue eyes reflecting unearthly lights above. "James. Barnes. Bucky. Gerard. Yasha." He shuddered, but she went on. "This is you, this is you. These names, these titles, Zima Soldat, Winter Soldier, Sergeant, Soldier- this is _you._ You choose, did you know that?" She thought she might cry, but it was too cold for that. Maybe she cried ice tears, maybe her face would be encrusted with spirals of frost. "I didn't, but I wanted to."

"Then what should I call you?" He asked. "Natalia, Nada, Nadine, Natalie, Anya?"

She thought about it. Natalia was the name of an adult, but it was also the name of her past. The others were stories, spun-sugar and gossamer webs; just waiting to fall down.

"Natasha," she whispered, and loved the way it sounded: sibilant, and then hard, and then soft: nnn-TAH-shh.

"Yes. Natasha."

…

Three weeks later, she was in a hospital in Akureyri, giving birth.

Bucky paced outside, boots clicking against the tiles; she could hear him. This pain- it was different from any she had ever felt, a knot in the base of her spine that grew and grew and grew, with no respite. She had faced pain before, but it had only ever taught her not to scream, not to not feel.

Eighteen hours and countless screams later, it was over.

Her child wailed, a thin sound, but she zeroed in on it with an intensity she hadn't felt ever before. Exhaustion poured out of her, but she struggled upwards and hissed, " _Give it to me."_

"It's a girl," the nurse said, with an insipid smile, and Natasha has never wanted to howl with rage this much before.

"Give the girl to me, then," she snarled, and felt a flare of sudden fear in her gut. Maybe the woman wasn't giving it because she knew who Natasha was- the only child of the two best supersoldiers in Russia merited something, didn't it? If the woman was Hydra…

God, she was thankful that they didn't have word-based triggers. They'd tried, a couple years before Natasha's batch of Black Widows, but each test had gone catastrophically wrong enough that they'd left that behind and went into erasing and restructuring memories afterwards.

But the nurse stepped forward and handed Natasha's baby- her _baby-_ and her soft, heavy baby-warmth fit into the curve of Natasha's arm perfectly.

"Get Bu- my husband, please," she said, not looking away, and the nurse padded away.

For the space of a few breaths Natasha was alone, and she just stared at this little girl, this baby who had saved Natalia, who had saved Natasha. This little girl, she thought, has changed the world before she even saw it.

Then Bucky was there, and the quiet peace faded; replaced with overwhelming delight.

"She has your eyes," he rumbled next to her ear, and she laughed.

The nurse, in the background, cleared her throat, and Natasha directed her attention at her.

"We need a name," she said.

Bucky said, "Katrin, yes, Anaya?" She nodded, and he went on. "Katrin Anayasdottir."

The nurse left, and Natasha dragged a hand up to Bucky's neck; smiled at him.

"What d'you say for Stephanie?"

He froze. "Natasha-"

"Nobody'll know her real name, of course, and we'll be changing it, always, but we need to pick something to call her that will always be _hers."_ A slow smile lit up Bucky's face, like the sunrise. She went on: "Stephanie-"

"Stephanie Natalievna Barnes," he interrupted, and it was her turn to feel short of breath- her child, yes, but named for the two of them; for Bucky's first, deepest love and then his family, but then for Natasha, the clearest sign that this little girl with chestnut wisps was _her daughter._ It wasn't written out in her skin or her blood, but that was okay: Natasha had enough names, enough scars carved into her skin. So did Bucky. This little girl deserved better than that; she deserved so very much more.

"Thank you," Natasha said, but it encompassed so much more than she thought she could ever hope to voice.

He traced a hand over her shoulder, right over a bullet-wound. The scar there was gone, like all the others, but she could feel it: phantom pain in the space between breaths.

"Natasha," he said quietly, wrapping an arm around her tightly, holding her to his chest. "Where do you want to go next?"

Want. Wish. Hope. These were her choices. This child, this love, this family- this was her choice, and this was her battle, and this was her war. It had taken her eight long months to walk this far, but here she was: a baby in her arms, and a lover at her side, and the world spilling out in front of her.

"Bucky," she said, wrapping an arm around his shoulder and leaning forward; kissing him, for the first time of her own volition, of her own choice. Against his lips, she whispered, "Let's go home."


End file.
